Post #628680 by TikiTomD on Wed, Mar 14, 2012 2:05 AM

After an intense day at work, I made us a Dr. Funk cocktail using the 1947 Trader Vic’s Bar Guide recipe posted by bigbrotiki back on page 1 of this thread. I used 2½ fl oz of Myers’s Original Dark Rum for the dark Jamaican rum and ginger ale instead of charged water (no soda water on hand).

I say, this is quite a nice drink, not at all sweet, and it’s certainly potent.

In the prior post, we saw that Dr. Funk’s interests in the Samoan language and in meteorology culminated in his publication of a book in 1893 addressing both subjects. You might also be surprised, as I was, to know that his meteorological work lives on in the digital library of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), through this US Weather Bureau Monthly Weather Review published in August of 1930...

According to Leilani Burgoyne in “Going ‘Troppo’ in the South Pacific: Dr. Bernhard Funk of Samoa 1844–1911,” Dr. Funk continued to collect Samoan meteorological observations for the Seewarte (Naval Observatory) in Hamburg and the German Firm (D.P.H.G.) until 1911. He was also involved in the establishment of the Apia Observatory at Mulinu`u, meeting with its founder, Otto Tetens, a number of times in 1902.

A 2002 poster (see Note 4 of this web page) celebrating the 100th anniversary of Apia Observatory uses photos taken by Otto Tetens...

Take a look at the lower right poster photo, expanded here; the figure on the right behind the telescope sure looks like Dr. Funk observing a solar eclipse on a piece of paper (Leilani indicated that an Otto Tetens photo existed with Dr. Funk in it)...

Or maybe it’s just my imagination, an effect of the Dr. Funk cocktail.

For his outstanding work in weather reporting, the German government awarded Dr. Funk the Order of the Red Eagle (4th Class) in 1910...

-Tom